"Betty."
Through her deep slumber, she heard Jughead say her name, but she wasn't ready to get up. Not yet. She snuggled down in the bed, her body aching in all the right places from last night.
"Betts, wake up."
As her eyes opened, she reach up to him, grabbed his arm and brought him down onto the bed with her. She spread her thighs, Jughead settling in between them, and she pulled his face down so she could kiss him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and realized for some reason he was wearing jeans. She moved her hand between them, undid the snap of his jeans.
"Why are you dressed?" she asked, working his jeans down his hips.
"Wait," Jughead said, stopping her fingers that had hitched into the waistband of his underwear.
"I don't want to wait," Betty said.
He didn't try to stop her as she stretched up, nipped the thin skin of his throat. She slipped her fingers into his boxers, releasing him. Despite him telling her to wait a few moments ago, he was hard and ready. Since she was still naked, she slid him into her, and she sighed when he started to move. She tightened her legs around his ass, keeping him deeply inside, but also locking him into place, keeping him still. She ground her pelvis against him, rubbing the hood of her sex against his until everything inside her quickened and released. He came a second later, and laughed to himself as he rolled off of her and onto his feet.
"You didn't even let me take my shoes off," he said. He yanked up his jeans and buckled his belt again. Then he put on his sherpa jacket.
"Stop putting clothes on. You're doing the opposite of what I want," she said.
"You need to get up," he said. He kissed her forehead.
She ignored the urgency in his voice. "No," she whined. She grabbed his wrist, trying to pull him back into bed with her, but he wouldn't budge this time.
"We need to go," Jughead said, stepping away from her. He rooted around in the bottom drawers of the dresser under the window until he found what he was looking for. He handed her some clothes and a pair of scuffed black boots. "Get dressed."
She looked down at the white t-shirt and ripped and faded jeans in her lap. "Whose clothes are these?" she asked, but she already knew.
His shoulders hunched when he answered, "My mom. You're a little thinner and taller, but they should fit." She wanted to ask him more about his mom, but she knew it was a sore subject. If he'd heard from Gladys Jones or anything had changed, he would have told her. For now she would leave the subject alone.
"Where are the clothes I was wearing earlier?" she asked.
"I put your nightgown and coat in the wash. They both had blood on them." He paused, opened his mouth to ask her a question, but then shook his head with a smile. "I had planned on keeping you naked at least until morning, so I didn't think we'd need them so soon."
What's going on?" She slipped on the shirt and jean. The shirt was a little baggy, the cuffs of the jeans hit her mid-calf. She sat on the edge of the bed to pull on the boots. There were a tight, but they'd do. She stood up and moved next to him, touching his forearm when he kept looking off into the distance, looking at nothing, lost in thought.
He turned to her when she said how name. "Are you really okay?" he asked. He raised his eyebrows, making sure she was looking at him, trying to see if she was telling the truth or not.
"Yes, Jug, I've told you that. I'm fine. I promise." Why did he keep asking her? Either he didn't believe her, or she really did scare the shit out of him. His features softened as he leaned down to kiss her. "Tell me what's going on."
"While you were sleeping, I got a visitor and a phone call from Eric. I want to go see him tonight. You might remember him. He's the guy I was sitting with in the Southside High cafeteria, and he and his dad came over the other night with the other Serpents. They rudely interrupted our kitchen counter sex." He smirked at her.
"They just delayed it. I definitely remember that night," she said.
She straightened the collar of his sherpa jacket, tucked some of his dark hair back into his beanie, and kissed him on his cheek. On that same night in question, Jughead had been invited into the Serpents. She glanced into the closet where the symbolic leather jacket hung. That jacket worried, but also thrilled her. She always thought it would be fun to ride around on one of their motorcycles, get into to a little trouble. And she'd done her research on the Serpents when she'd written her latest article defending them and FP. The Serpents weren't the crimelords most people made them out to be. In fact, she'd found quite a few examples of them getting arrested when they were actually coming to the defense of others who had been mistreated. In a lot of cases she'd found that the Serpents were in reality the good guys.
He took her chin in between his thumb and forefinger. "You know you don't have to worry about me joining them, right?"
She shrugged and pulled the leather jacket out of the closet and slipped her arms into it. "I'd still love you if you did, Jug. You could be their leader and I wouldn't leave your side." She went up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek again, but he caught her chin and brought her mouth to his and took a moment to really kiss her.
"I don't deserve you," he said.
"Yes, you do." She took his hand and he followed her through the trailer and out the door. Once they were inside the warmth of the truck, she asked, "So why are we out before the sunrise? Is it Fred?"
He stared at her for a moment, confused, but then shook his head when he realized why she was asking. "I'm sorry. I never finished explaining where we're going and why. Fred is fine. But this partly has to do with him." He sighed. "It's kind of a long messy story. But last night before Eric came over, even before I went out to look for you, I was at Archie's and I overheard Mary talking to Sheriff Keller on the phone. Keller told her that they arrested the wrong guy."
Betty twisted to face him. "So the shooter is still out there?" Betty asked.
"Yep. Another important case bumbled by Sheriff Clueless. But that's not all I heard. Mary doesn't think that the shooting is random."
"Me either," she said excitedly. She'd been too caught up in her oncoming darkness that she hadn't gotten the chance to tell Jughead how she'd thought that everything with Fred's shooter had been tied up too neatly. Too perfectly to be true. To her, that was a warning sign that things didn't add up.
Jughead parked the truck in front of a small blue trailer that was located at the center of the Southside. The exterior needed a fresh coat of paint, but the front porch was filled with small pots of colorful plants and flowers, like someone was trying their best to make it more homey. Jughead turned out the headlights, but left the truck running, the heat pumping through the small cab, protecting them from the freezing rain.
"So why are we at Eric's house?" she asked.
"I told you that it was a messy story."
"The best ones always are," she said.
He paused to smile and nodded in agreement. "And I don't know where this one is going yet. Mary thinks that the shooting has to do with something that happened to them, and four other people twenty-five years ago. Something called Goldhead."
"Gold what?"
"Don't know yet, but I think Eric is going to help us figure it out. That's why we're here to see him."
"How do you think Eric can help?" Betty asked.
"Eric's dad, Snake, is missing."
"Snake?" Betty asked, chuckling at the name. "Are you going to get a cool new nickname if you join the Serpents." She patted his cheek, teasing him.
"I already have a nickname," he said, grinning. "But anyway. Eric came to me, looking for guidance on what about his dad. I told him I had no idea where his dad was or what to do, and honestly I just wanted to get back into bed with you, but something about it, his dad going missing, Fred getting shot, Keller and the Andrews having some deep dark secret, it all rubbed me the wrong way. And something about it all was off or connected. . . Or something. I don't know."
"It got your journalist juices flowing," she said. She was sitting on her knees, ready to start investigating right this second, even though the sun had just started to rise.
"Yes, and if all that wasn't enough, Eric called me twenty minutes ago and told me more. Someone rang his doorbell and left Snake's jacket on the front porch. With a picture inside. Eric told me that Snake, my dad, and five other people were in the picture. They were all standing in front of a sign for Goldhead."
"Interesting. What's Goldhead?" she asked.
"I don't know. The only thing I found was a website for a state park named Goldhead in Florida. Nothing else."
"So it's a mystery," Betty said. Her mind started churning, putting all the information together, but then she stopped, realizing something. "Why didn't you tell me any of this earlier, like in the middle of the night when I woke up the first time?"
His fingers tightened around hers as he brought her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of her hand. "You've gone through a lot over the last twenty-four hours. I wanted to make sure you were okay before I thrust all this on you."
"I'm okay, Jug," she replied. How many times did she have to tell him before he believed her? She knew that cutting herself had to be scary to him, it was scary to her, too, but she wanted to put it all behind her. She was okay now. Totally fine, ready to move on from it.
"I know. I just wanted to give you a little time to breathe."
"Well, I've breathed, and I'm ready."
"Good, because I need you and your smart brain. Are you ready to reinstate the Cooper and Jones Investigations?"
"Always," she replied.
He kissed her one last time, and then went around to the passenger side of the truck and opened her door for her. He helped her out of the tall cab, and keeping his hand in hers, lead her up to Eric's front porch.
Jughead pulled open the trailer's front screen and knocked on the door. As they waited for an answer Betty surveyed her boyfriend. She had shown an even uglier side of herself to him tonight, and here he was. He wouldn't be scared off. How had she overlooked him for so many years, not seen his goodness and dedication? Those years might have been lost to them now, but she would never take him for granted again. Never.
When no one answered the door to Eric's house, Jughead tried the doorknob and it opened for them, letting them into the dark living room.
"Hello?" Betty called out. She flipped on the lights, but the room was empty except for a few couches and a older flat screen TV. "Are we at the right place?"
Jughead pulled out his phone and looked up the address Eric had sent him. "Yep. This is where he told me to go."
With Jughead following her, Betty moved through the house, starting in the kitchen, turning on lights as she went. She picked up framed pictures and any pieces of paper that she found, looking for some pertinent information. Nothing stood out. As she walked down the narrow hallway, Jughead wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her back into his front, and kissed the nape of her neck.
"I love it when you turn into a sleuth," Jughead said. "It turns me on." His hand went around to her front and palmed her breast, making a rush of heat thrill through her. "Everything you do turns me on."
Giggling, she swatted his hand away as his fingers tried to dip past the waistband of the jeans. "If you start that, we'll never get any investigating done," she said.
Holding his hands up in defeat, he took the hint and step back a little. "You're right. You're right," he agreed. He moved past her and to the door in front of her. The knob wouldn't turn.
Trying the knob herself, Betty placed her hand over his. "Locked," she said.
"He's not here." A creaky voice came from nowhere, causing both to jolt with a fright and spin around.
"Holy shit!" Betty said as she spun around.
"Language, young lady," the old lady said.
A petite, frail looking grey haired woman hobbled towards them, relying on a walker to give her stability. She was dressed in a ratty housecoat and frade slippers. Thick, purple framed bifocals were perched on her nose.
"Eric left here in a huff a few minutes. Got a phone call on his cellular device, yelled at someone, and then tore out of here. Waking me up in the damn middle of the night." She fluffed her fluffy hair. "I'll have you know I didn't get this beautiful by chance. I need eight hours of beauty sleep a night to look this good. You'd think he'd know that seeing as how he's my one and only grandson."
Jughead snickered, but agreed. "You're right, miss. All that beauty sleep paid off." Then he leaned over and whispered in Betty's ear, "I wonder if she knows Nana Rose. Pick that door lock and see what you can find inside, Nancy Drew. I'll get sleeping beauty back to bed."
When Jughead tried to lead the woman away, she turned back to Betty. "It's nice to see you again, Alice. Still as pretty and fiery as ever. Give that handsome boyfriend of yours some love for me." She waved over her shoulder as she walked away. This wasn't the first time someone had mistaken Betty for a young Alice. Betty had seen the old photos herself. The resemblance was uncanny.
"What is it about old ladies coming out of the shadows in creepy houses and recognizing you?" Jughead asked Betty as he walked down the hall behind Eric's grandma. He turned the hallway corner and helped Eric's grandma get into her bedroom.
Betty ducked into the bathroom, found a bobby pin in a drawer, but she paused when she caught her reflection in the mirror. Her ponytail was still high, but looser than normal, a few blond strands framing her face. Her cheeks looked hollowed out, her skin pale. She straightened the oversized jacket, turning to look at the two snakes forming an S on the back of it. She liked what she saw.
Within thirty seconds of leaving the bathroom, the bedroom door popped open. She turned on the lights and look around. It was your typical teenage boy's bedroom, bed unmade, dirty clothes on the floor, papers and textbooks piled on the desk. After a quick scan, she found the Serpent jacket balled up on the floor of the closet. The picture was there on the carpet, a little crumpled, the edges of it tinged red with what she only could think could be blood, but none of that distracted her from the face of the girl at the center of the photo. It wasn't the same picture Jughead had described to her. Instead of seven people, it only had two sitting on a motorcycle, and one of them Betty new instantly.
Stunned, she stumbled out of the bedroom, picture still in hand. She shut Eric's door again, and ran into Jughead as he came down the hall from the grandmother's room.
"You should be jealous," Jughead said. "While I was putting grandma to bed, she mistook me for her late husband and kissed me goodnight. She used her tongue." He wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand, but he stopped short when he saw the state of her. "What? What is it?"
"I found the jacket, but not the same picture Eric said he had. FP isn't in this one."
Betty handed the picture to Jughead, and his eyes widened when he looked down at it. "Is that who I think it is?" he asked.
"My mother, Alice Cooper, wearing a Southside Serpent's jacket."